Republicans have been claiming there won't be a draft because the military is hitting all of its enlistment goals this year. Everything's fine! Stop worrying.
Obviously, the best way to keep hitting goals in the face of lowered enlistment is to simply lower the goals. So I googled around to find the goals. Naturally, news article don't give goals for the previous years when trumpeting how the military is hitting the marks.
2002
Air Force - 37823
Army - 79500
Marines - 38642
Navy - 46500
2004
Air Force - 34080
Army - 77000
Marines - 36773
Navy - 39700
Numbers explain themselves.
Military spokesmen have been saying things are so great that they don't need as many new recruits, hence the lower goals I guess, because "retention" has been so great.
I just wonder how much of that "retention" is voluntary.